Several major news outlets reported this morning that ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was returning to power. “Deal Reached in Honduras to Restore Ousted President”, read a New York Times headline. “Zelaya Set to Return to Power”, said the Washington Post.
However, experts on Honduras dispute this version of events.
“There seems to be plenty of misreporting on this initially… The [Washington] Post and some other places have reported that Clinton has said that the agreement says that Zelaya will return to power, but this is not accurate as far as I can tell,” said Ian Vasquez, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, in an interview with NewMajority.
“They’re reporting that it’s a done deal. My understanding… is that Congress will have to vote [on his return],” agreed Ray Walser, the Heritage Foundation’s Senior Policy Analyst for Latin America.
According to Walser, media outlets are “hastily reporting a deal which is still far more complex and fragile [than is being said].”
While Manuel Zelaya has told a Honduran radio station that “this [accord] signifies my return to power in the coming days,” the reality is that the agreement only concedes that Congress, in consultation with the Supreme Court, will vote on whether he can return.
It would be very surprising if the very Congress and courts which removed Zelaya from office would now vote to see him return. Indeed, Vasquez tells NewMajority that he “would bet against it.”
“There is a potential that this is really a victory for the Micheletti regime,” said Walser.
The United States and the Organization of American States were threatening not to recognize the outcome of Honduras’ coming elections if Micheletti’s interim government and Zelaya didn’t have agreement in place by Election Day. Now that there is an agreement between the two camps, Hondurans will be able to go to the polls on November 29th with a dramatically reduced fear that the international community will condemn the results.
The misreporting seems to stem from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s desperation for any sort of good news. This morning, Clinton announced that Honduras had overcome its “crisis through negotiation and dialogue.”
Clinton “is in Pakistan, with people blowing up bombs, and trying to lecture [Pakistan] on Al-Qaeda – the last thing on her mind is Honduras… there’s not much good news out there, so she wants a snatch at any little piece of [it],”said Walser.
The fact of the matter is that the situation in Honduras is far from resolved. For Zelaya to resume his former duties, the Supreme Court will need to convene and issue a non-binding ruling on the constitutionality of his return. Following this, Congress would embark on a lengthy debate on the matter, with the possibility of filibusters. As of now, there is nothing resembling a timetable for Zelaya to return to the presidential office.
One thing is certain – if Zelaya somehow manages to engineer a return, it will be a terrible blow to democracy in Honduras.
His return would be “a tragedy for the future of Honduran democracy,” said Abe Greenwald, a Policy Advisor at the Foreign Policy Initiative. “Any time that we step in on behalf of anti-democratic forces, it will come back to bite us in the long run… We’re showing people like Hugo Chavez that we have no interest in defending democracy.”
10 responses so far
1 MI-GOPer // Oct 30, 2009 at 3:33 pm
I’m not a big Hillary Clinton fan, but I thought she’d have been a better choice than Obama for a whole host of reasons.
One of them shows up here: confidence in expressing candor when the occasion merits. Pakistan has used the “we’re fragile, we must accomodate the Taliban” just like the Saudi princes have long used their fragility of rule to counter responsible actions against native jihadism against the West.
I just hope that when Hillary gets back to Washington, surgeons can take her newly minted brass balls and transplant them onto our Coward in Chief, the Dithering President. Obama, the Balls-less Prez.
2 Arch // Oct 30, 2009 at 5:22 pm
onto our Coward in Chief, the Dithering President. Obama, the Balls-less Prez.
Stay classy, mi-goper.
3 LFC // Oct 30, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Arch, mi-goper is the last 60% of “class”.
4 MI-GOPer // Oct 30, 2009 at 7:03 pm
ahh, arch and lfc showing da’ Master Obama how to do da’ Chicago thugs beat-up-da-white-guy skit.
Sorry guys, your “man” ain’t; he’s a coward. Hillary and the French have more balls than Obama –how pathetic is that?? Out-maled by the French… how low American prestige abroad sinks. Hey, on the flipside, Castro and Chavez love us ’cause we elected Obama… and Hezbollah and Hamas think we’re cool… and then there are all those muslim college students in gender-segregated schools who think we’re da Bomb because our nominally “Christian” president can chant the Islamic Koran in perfect pitch at prayer time. Plus, if the Democrat National Committee’s award group has anything to say about it… we may even end up being liked by radical anarchists in Western Europe burning the Flag and spitting on the US… gotta love that we’re getting the anti-American, flag-burning vote with Obamas “moving on up to the East side…”
5 ottovbvs // Oct 31, 2009 at 9:53 am
…….Desperate for good news?……yes I’m sure this news was always going to have an absolutely huge impact on her popularity amongst Americans most of whom aren’t sure where Sweden is let alone Honduras
4 mi-goper // Oct 30, 2009 at 7:03 pm
“ahh, arch and lfc showing da’ Master Obama how to do da’ Chicago thugs beat-up-da-white-guy skit.
Sorry guys, your “man” ain’t; he’s a coward. Hillary and the French have more balls than Obama –how pathetic is that?? Out-maled by the French… how low American prestige abroad sinks. Hey, on the flipside, Castro and Chavez love us ’cause we elected Obama… and Hezbollah and Hamas think we’re cool… and then there are all those muslim college students in gender-segregated schools who think we’re da Bomb because our nominally “Christian” president can chant the Islamic Koran in perfect pitch at prayer time. Plus, if the Democrat National Committee’s award group has anything to say about it… we may even end up being liked by radical anarchists in Western Europe burning the Flag and spitting on the US… gotta love that we’re getting the anti-American, flag-burning vote with Obamas “moving on up to the East side…”
……..Definitely one chair short of a picnic
6 MI-GOPer // Oct 31, 2009 at 9:56 am
ottoBS, the Village Idiot weighs in with his best shot.
LOL!
7 jvnyk // Oct 31, 2009 at 5:23 pm
A sad day that will live in infamy for all Hondurans.
8 Danny_K // Nov 1, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Tim, are you going to acknowledge any time soon that the Micheletti government has suspended many civil rights and closed down opposition radio stations? Neither Zelaya nor Micheletti is a Honduran Harry Truman, it seems to me.
And how are you going to build a “new majority” if you depend only on the same old, same old sources? Do you think that the Heritage Foundation has a good track record on foreign policy?
9 Tim Mak // Nov 1, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Danny_K – I’ve written about it right here:
http://www.newmajority.com/zelaya-standoff-costing-impoverished-hondurans-50-million-a-day
10 Poolshark // Nov 3, 2009 at 3:27 pm
This article was one of the few that got it right. Almost all of the media jumped to the wrong conclusion and crowed it to the high heavens that Zelaya will be back. Most of the comment here totally missed the point. I did like the one who said, ‘Americans, most of whom aren’t sure where Sweden is, let alone Honduras’. In Honduras they say Obama is the little black man who doesn’t even know where Tegucigalpa is.
The United States really has no business meddling in the affairs of a sovreign country. Hillary didn’t like how the Supreme court judges voted so she cancelled their visas, so they could not come to the U.S. and explain to congress or to N.Y. to talk to the UN. What is that chavista stuff?
Anyway, the agreement is exactly what Micheletti has said for the past several weeks, let the court decide. This is a legal matter, not a political one. Now after four months, the U.S. State Dept. is going to let the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court decide this issue. Hello? Isn’t that just what they did back in June, that everyone on the international scene refused to accept? This agreement is not so much between Zelaya and Micheletti as it is between Honduras and the United States, that they will finally let Hondurans decide how to run their country. And give Clinton all the credit, or let her save face, ha ha.
Do they think they will vote differently now? Even though Pepe Lobo has promised to swing his party’s votes for Zelaya, he won’t or won’t be able to. First of all, right now he is leading in the polls. The majority just want this over, they don’t want Zelaya back. So If Lobo throws it, he will lose the election. I don’t think he will do that. Secondly, some of the congress will listen to the court, so he is not in complete control. A lot of people think Zelaya will buy the votes as he has in the past. There will be too much scrutiny, and Mel is running out of money, since some of it has been recovered from searching the palace and a lot has been spent paying demonstators.
A very interesting article in Honduras Daily News also pointed out that the reason Zelaya signed the agreement, (even though it is the same thing the interim government has been saying all along), is that Hillary threatened him with arrest of his son on drug charges. See, Mel was deep into drug trafficking. The reason everyone wanted Micheletti out was so the drug triffic could resume, especially Chavez. Zelaya is crazy as a bed bug, but he is not stupid. He can read the agreement and already knows it will get him nowhere. He is just trash talking as usual.
To Danny K .. When Zelaya’s paid ‘peaceful’ activists were looting stores, overturning buses, setting restaurants on fire, attacking firemen, kidnapping old men, executing Micheletti’s nephew, giving hate speeches against the jews , don’t you think it is the government’s responsibility to restore order? As far as making the demonstrators get permit, every little town and county everywhere requires a permit to have a parade, hello?, that is normal. (I love being a Golpista!)
One more thing, Micheletti would not have signed this if he thought he would lose. Just the day before, he sued Brazil for interfering in Honduras internal affairs at the International court. This tells me he his planning two moves ahead in this chessgame. What I really wonder is what is going to happen when the legislature refuses to reinstate him?
Sorry, una vez mas, turning the military over to the electoral Commission is in the constitution and is normal procedure for every election anyway. They agreed to the constitution, gee.
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